NEW DELHI, May 3 (RIA Novosti) – The prosecutor who investigated the murder of Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was himself slain in a drive-by shooting in Islamabad on Friday, Dawn newspaper reported.
Two men passed Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali’s car on a motorcycle in the street, pelting it with bullets, the English-language daily said.
Zulfiqar received 10 bullets and died in hospital. An unnamed woman was also shot dead, and the prosecutor’s bodyguard was injured.
Zulfiqar, a special prosecutor for the Federal Investigation Agency, has received threats last year along with other investigators working on the case, the report said.
Bhutto, 54, was assassinated in 2007 at a rally ahead of the presidential elections, in which she participated. The government blamed al-Qaeda’s affiliates for the murder, but then-President Pervez Musharraf was also implicated, with a court issuing an arrest warrant for him on accusations that he was aware of the upcoming assassination attempt, but did not inform Bhutto, his rival at the polls.
Bhutto was Pakistani prime minister in 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, becoming the first woman to head a predominantly Muslim state. She spent nine years in exile after losing the power struggle and facing corruption charges, and only returned to Pakistan in 2007 to participate in the presidential elections, which she did not live to see.
